Dualism
by Diana Lucifera
Summary: Like all of Near’s downfalls, this too was Mello’s fault. No, that was incorrect. Mello was a downfall in and of himself. One-sided Near/Mello.


Since I have finals next week, as well as final projects to do over the weekend, the best thing to do would be to write Death Note fanfic, right? Yes, clearly. Warnings for spoilers through the entire series (and allusions to the manga ending), as well as some violent themes. I do not in any way, shape, or form own "Death Note," nor am I earning any profit from this story. I just write the fanfics. Don't sue me, please.

* * *

Near could feel soft flesh under his thumbs and the thundering of desperate pulse against his palms, and he didn't stop himself. Under him, Mello felt unexpectedly solid, his blue eyes wide, so wide, and his mouth hanging open, gasping for air like a landed fish. His hands scrambled at Near's wrists, pressing weakly now, and Near could feel a sort of death rattle sound in his chest.

Since infancy, Near had always been inclined to nonviolence. He honestly couldn't remember one person or instance in his entire, young life that had caused him to lose his temper. Just as in everything else, however, Mello was apparently the exception. He was always stomping around, kicking over Near's model cities, bursting into his room at all hours of the night, throwing things at his head during class. It was all very tiresome, and more than that, it was annoying. Mello got under his skin, made him unintentionally snap pencils, dig his fingernails into his palms until they hurt, gave him headaches. Maybe he hadn't realized just how annoying he found Mello, though, before this instant, when Mello, angry over some slight, had stomped into the playroom, snatched an action figure right out of Near's grasp and punted it out the open window. He was screaming about _something_ (something stupid, 98 percent probability), and then, when Near had shown interest in the actual important thing (the now missing action figure), he'd actually _come at _Near. Near had seen his rival's approach, felt the force of a tackle, and, for the first time in his life, he'd snapped.

Really, it was very satisfying.

Probably due to the fact that Mello must have expected him to draw inward like a turtle under pressure, it was surprisingly easy to flip him over and gain the upper hand. And it was surprisingly easy to wind his hands around Mello's windpipe, just to cut off his shrieking voice and make him be _still_. And it had been even easier than that to press tighter, to watch fear register in Mello's features and satisfy a little of that fire that had been growing in his belly since the day they had met, and Mello had pushed him down, right into a puddle, for ignoring him. Actually, the hard part about this business seemed to be convincing his hands to let go.

Near wasn't even sure he wanted to, at this point, although he really had no real desire to _kill_ Mello. It was only that he had apparently been driven to some psychological breaking point where the very last thing on his mind was the need for oxygen in the lungs and the very first appeared to be memorizing Mello's stricken features, from the utter bloodlessness in his cheeks to the desperate question in his eyes.

They said: _"Are you going to kill me?"_

Well, that _was_ the question, wasn't it?

He was distantly aware of hands on him now, of Matt shouting in his ear, trying to tug him away, but Near just gripped tighter, using Mello as an anchor. He could hear the excited bustle of children gathered all around, too, apparently drawn like wild animals to the scent of blood. But the rush of blood in his ears and the adrenaline thrumming through his body made all of that irrelevant, and he found himself instead perversely aware of how Mello's hands had stopped pulling and pressing at his attacker only to sort of paw weakly at his forearms . His lips were trembling, and his eyes were starting to look distant, and oh, god, Near realized suddenly, even though he'd really known it all along, _I'm killing him!_

And then there were much bigger, stronger hands on his, prying his fingers away, and he was being pulled backward. Taking a breath and looking upwards, he met Roger's startled, harassed countenance, the old man's breath slightly ragged, probably from running like hell in the direction of all the noise. He seemed too surprised to say much anyway, however, so Near calmly pulled his arms from the man's grasp and crawled under his arms to settle a few feet away, tugging at his hair with hands that felt strained from clinching and watched with detached interest as Mello attempted to regain his bearings.

The blond took only a moment to sit up, but he was very still for a while, looking vaguely confused and dizzy from oxygen deprivation. Matt crouched beside him, his hands fluttering like butterflies around Mello's neck, obviously wanting to help but afraid to touch. Roger simply blinked at both Mello and Near himself, unsure how to handle such an unexpected situation. (Near estimated that the probability that he would escape punishment for this was actually very high, since Roger vastly preferred him to the boisterous Mello, under normal circumstances.)

Finally, Mello shook himself and, unceremoniously knocking Matt's hovering hands away, stumbled to his feet. He swayed slightly, and for half a second, Near though he might just fall backwards again, but Matt darted forward and gripped him tightly by the upper arm, and Mello steadied himself, giving his friend a look that implied that he wanted to smack his hands away yet again, but couldn't be bothered.

Instead, he turned slightly, looked right at Near, and laughed.

His voice was hoarse and thin from the abuse, but his laugh, which sounded just over the far end of sanity by nature, filled the room like some kind of mad, ethereal thing, and Near saw the gathered crowd shrink away and couldn't understand why. That sound sent a thrill right through him that was half-violence and half-enthrallment, and like Mello himself, it made him sick to his stomach even as it drew him in.

He was on his feet before he even registered that he was moving, and he found that Mello had strode forward, too, so that they were now nose to nose. Over Mello's shoulder, he could see Matt's eyes filled with bewildered concern, his arms outstretched slightly, as if he might draw Mello back by sheer force of will, and the entire room standing very still, as if watching two equally dangerous predators circling each other. But they didn't understand. Near knew that, in both of them, the violence had passed. Now, the thing that was left was to choose the next move, to try to predict:

"_Now what?"_

"_What will you do?"_

"_What will _I_ do?"_

Their relationship was so predictably unpredictable; it made Near's head spin.

Mello laughed again, that same gravelly, hysterical thing, and ducked in, put his lips right up to Near's ear to whisper harshly. Near couldn't breathe. He was drowning in this madness.

How long had he been drowning?

And then Mello had swept out of the room as quickly as a puff of hot breath into the hollow of Near's ear, and the other orphans were dispersing, murmuring among themselves. Even Roger left, shaking his head, his face creased with bemusement, while Near simply stood there, still, until the only person left in the room was Matt, who stood similarly rooted to the floor as he cast the other boy some inscrutable look that Near hypothesized to be equal parts blame and understanding. He reached up to twirl his hair and found that his hand got snagged halfway, tracing the crest of his ear, where Mello's lips had touched.

Disgusting.

And of course, years later, he would remember being unsurprised at the way the other orphans had regarded him with a sort of grudging respect for the next few weeks, while Mello wore the bruises that Near's tiny hands had left on his neck like some kind of expensive and fashionable necklace, and Matt cast him leery looks from his new position at Mello's elbow. (Mello got tired of being shadowed in exactly a week and a half and, ever charitable, tossed Matt's Gameboy down a stairwell with the warning that his best friend would be next if he didn't stop stepping on Mello's heels.) Of course, Roger had reacted to the problem of assigning blame for the incident by pretending it had never happened. Everything had moved in a predictable pattern, just as Near liked it, and eventually, the memory had faded in everyone's minds, except, of course, for Near himself.

It bothered him. He analyzed it from every angle and, though he eventually decided to dismiss it as a one-time incident, caused by a myriad of factors and unlikely to be reproduced, it stuck with him, twisted in his stomach, traced its way down his spine. It curled it the back of his brain, like annoyance and frustration and—

And even all those years later, as he said to Giovanni, "We don't do that," and as he planned everything, so intricate and perfect, as long as everyone followed their patterns, and nothing unexpected happened, he thought it might be. It might be unexpected, like the feeling of his brain reeling and a loss of control and a body closing into his and—

And: _"It's a race."_

But he had morals and plans laid out in neat little charts and graphs and lines, which would work so much better than wildly taking risks and making sacrifices and breaking all of his predecessor's ethical codes.

"_I'll be waiting." _

...Right?

And then Mello went crashing down, just like Near always knew he would. He was too emotional, took too many risks, and unlike Near, he had never really taken the time to learn how to stay _alive_. And so he was gone, Near's dark mirror twin, gone up in smoke, and since he'd been expecting it all along, had known it was inevitable, there was nothing to even think about, but.

"_Now, I always know what you will do."_

But.

"_Now, you will never surprise me."_

But.

"_Why doesn't it make me feel better?"_

He found himself off-kilter. He found himself lacking, and it seemed so strange, so wrong that no one was risking _everything_, betting themselves and their friends and their enemies on some mad gamble, some hysterical theory. It seemed unwise to let things progress in his own, riskless fashion, and he thought it might be that, with their Yin and Yang interlocking pieces, he and Mello had actually created some sort of accidentally effective system. Or at least, he would have liked to think that this was all about the system.

But when he wrote "Mikami Teru" in the notebook, wrote out all of the little times and instructions, it was Mello's voice that whispered is his mind, brushed chapped lips across the crest of his ear and left moist heat and twisted emotion in his wake, left that mad laugh hanging in the air, just like on that day long ago when Mello had shown him just what he was capable of:

"_I knew you had it in you."_

The chocolate melted in his mouth, and it was too sweet and too dark, but he didn't stop until he loved it.

So.

"_Now what?"_


End file.
